BOOMERS WARNED OF MARIJUANA'S RISK TO HEALTH

Serious statistical link to heart attacks is found

SAN DIEGO -- Warning to middle-aged marijuana smokers: Smoking
marijuana may be bad for your middle-aged hearts.

In the first study to find a statistical link between marijuana and
heart trouble, Harvard researchers reported yesterday that the risk of
a heart attack is five times higher than usual in the hour after
smoking a joint.

Until now, marijuana has not been much of an issue in heart disease,
since older folks do not typically smoke pot. However, this could
change as baby boomers take their pot-smoking habits into middle age
and beyond.

The researchers said that for someone in good physical shape,
marijuana is about twice as risky as exercising or having sex.

The study was conducted by Dr. Murray Mittleman of the Harvard School
of Public Health and Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He
presented the findings at a conference in San Diego of the American
Heart Association.

The researchers questioned 3,882 heart attack victims -- men and women
- -- at 62 locations across the country about their habits and found
that 124 were marijuana users. While pot was uncommon among the
elderly heart patients, 13 percent of those under age 50 said they
smoke it.

Among those questioned, 37 had their heart attacks within a day of
using marijuana, including nine within an hour afterward.

The researchers calculated that someone's risk of a heart attack is
five times higher during the hour after using marijuana. After an
hour, the risk falls to twice normal. It soon returns to the usual
level.

Whether a fivefold increase is a worry depends on whether someone has
other risk factors, such as high blood pressure or diabetes. The
increased risk is probably insignificant for a 20-year-old, whose
chance of a heart attack is vanishingly small anyway.

"With baby boomers aging, more people in 40s and 50s are smoking
marijuana than in prior generations," Mittleman said. "The risk of
coronary artery disease increases with age. Whether this will emerge
as a public health problem remains to be seen."

In any case, the risk of a heart attack from any single session of
marijuana smoking is likely to be low. Mittleman said that for an
otherwise healthy 50-year-old man, it is about 10 in 1 million.

Marijuana typically makes the heart speed up by about 40 beats a
minute. Whether this contributes to heart attacks is unclear.

In general, the marijuana smokers in the study were more likely than
other heart attack victims to be overweight and sedentary, but they
were less apt to have diabetes, high blood pressure or badly clogged
arteries.

"My advice on marijuana is, 'Don't,'" said Dr. Lynn Smaha of Sayre,
Pa., president of the heart association. "If they have heart disease,
I'd tell patients they are playing a dangerous game if they smoke marijuana."

Mittleman said the possibility of triggering a heart attack should be
considered when deciding whether to smoke marijuana for medicinal
purposes, such as to relieve the nausea of chemotherapy.

Chuck Thomas of the Washington-based Medical Marijuana Policy Group,
which advocates legalizing cannabis for medical treatment, noted that
many prescription drugs also have dangerous side effects.

"If someone has such a bad heart that they can't run upstairs, they
probably should not smoke marijuana, either," he said. "But that decision
should be left up to a doctor and not the criminal justice system."